SPECIAL ISSUE - 6 INTERVIEWS by Andrej Koymasky (C) 2006 written on December 17th 1994 translated by the author English text kindly revised by John
USUAL DISCLAIMER
"SPECIAL ISSUE - 6 INTERVIEWS" is a gay story, with some parts containing graphic scenes of sex between males. So, if in your land, religion, family, opinion and so on this is not good for you, it will be better not to read this story. But if you really want, or because YOU don't care, or because you think you really want to read it, please be my welcomed guest.
THIRD
Our third interview of famous people on the international gay scene, is a famous French fashion designer, really loved and appreciated, mainly by the younger people, and aimed towards the future as few other stylists are.
OLIVIER CHARENNE
Fashion designer - France
Q. It is a real pleasure being able to interview the great Charenne, and this especially because it is known that up to now you never wanted to give interviews. Why, then, did you accept our request?
A. Because for years I have read your magazine, and I admire it. And because you promised me you will not talk about fashion.
Q. But, if you are to tell us about your life...
A. Certainly it is intertwined with my designer's career, but as long as fashion remains on the background... That suits me.
Q. And yet, you like your work, it arouses your passion - how come you don't want to talk about it?
A. Because in my opinion fashion is something you come to appreciate, not by talking about it, but by wearing it, and also because words misrepresent very often the point I try to make with my fashions. I hate the fashion reports; they are banal or absolutely incomprehensible, even to me working in the field!
Q. Well, let's then start with our interview - how and when did you understand you are gay, and how did you then live this dimension.
A. I discovered it late, and at first I lived it badly. I was aged twenty-one years. One of the garments I created, that a friend of mine wore at an important party, caught the attention of a fashion journalist who asked her who designed that garment. She told him my name and the journalist wanted to meet me. He called me and we fixed a meeting. He was the famous G* writing for "Vogue" magazine - I was excited. He came to my tiny workshop. I showed him all my hand-crafted production and he was struck by it. He proposed me to design some garments more in order to create a line. He would find good models, both men and women, would take pictures and dedicate to me an article. It was my big break, I was thrilled and happy. I worked like a madman, full of enthusiasm - at that time I still worked completely by myself. The photographer prepared the pictures and it seemed to methen that my model was even more beautiful than in life. He wrote an article where he announced the discovery of the fashion's new genius. Vogue printed it. Telephone calls, telex, faxes, telegrams showered me - a real triumph. I was in seventh heaven. I asked him to come and celebrate with me. He, as a counterproposal, organized a party at his home, inviting models, media people, and common friends. Do you see - I was the center of the attention, the guest of honor. I was intoxicated. A splendid evening. Everybody offered me drinks, and made compliments, asked questions, and I had a very good time. Then, gradually, everybody left. Just G* and I remained. I was feeling merrily tipsy.
To express all my gratitude to him, while I was preparing to leave, I hugged him. He held me tight against himself. I, elated, kissed him. He kissed me back on my mouth.
And he told me: "Olivier, I love you!"
"Me too!" I answered without reflecting.
"I want to make love with you." he said caressing me in an intimate way.
His caresses excited me so, and on instinct, my body answered to his body. I let him guide me to his bed, I let him undress me, I let him love me, take me. He repeated that he loved me. I repeated that I loved him. He brought me to ecstasy.
We fell asleep naked, connected. I woke up on the following morning and it was almost noon. I found myself in bed, completely naked, with G*. I was amazed but then, suddenly, I remembered everything, and felt filled with shame. I didn't blame him, but myself. I sneaked out of the bed and dressed in silence, asking myself how could I have done such a thing. I was already half dressed when he woke up.
"What are you doing? Why are you dressing?" he asked sitting up in the bed.
"I go back home..." I answered, crestfallen.
"No, please, stay a while more... now I too get up..."
"No, remain... I'm going."
He understood from my expression there was something wrong and guessed what: "Is it because of what happened last night?" he asked in a low voice.
"Yes. I'm sorry. It shouldn't have happened." I said feeling terribly ashamed.
"But why? I really love you, from the first day I met you. And to me, this night here has been wonderful. Especially when you told me repeatedly that you too love me."
I blushed: "I was drunk, you should forgive me. I... I never did those things before, I'm sorry. I should not have done them; I don't want to do them." I said ill at ease.
"But you enjoyed it." he insisted.
"I was drunk."
"I'm sorry, then. I presumed you liked me, or else... don't think, please, I took advantage of you, just because I like boys." he barely murmured.
"No, it's not you who has to apologize - it's me the one who embraced, kissed you. I like you G*, but as a friend, not in that way, forgive me."
"Do you mean that you will remain my friend?"
"Of course! You do not have to doubt that. But don't ask me to..."
"No, sure, I could not now that I know I was wrong."
We remained friends. And afterwards there was not even a hint of embarrassment between us.
Q. This was your first experience, but you did not yet accept yourself as a gay, right?
A. To tell the truth, that was not my absolute first experience. My first sex experience with a man happened when I was fourteen. That is before I started to cut the old clothes of my family to make the fashion clothes that my family, for lack of money, could not buy for me.
I was fourteen. I was going to see my grandma in the South of France. Alone. Grandma sent me the money for a sleeping wagon, second class. I was alone in the sleeping wagon, so I chose the berth of the middle. I pulled off my shoes, pullover and trousers, and, wearing just my briefs and singlet, I lay down to sleep. I fell asleep at once. In the dead of night I was awakened by a weird sensation - somebody entered my dark compartment. At the faint blue light of the small central night lamp, I could barely distinguish his shape. He was a man. He had uncovered me and was masturbating me. Stiff with fear, I stared at him, without moving. With the corner of my eye I became aware that meanwhile he was also masturbating himself. Then he bent over me and sucked me until I ejaculated, and he drank all my come. Then I heard him softly moan and understood that he too reached his orgasm. He then stood up, opened the compartment door with the T-key that railway men have, and disappeared. I remained still, petrified, and my heart was beating wildly. I had experienced a mix of fear, excitement, shame, and pleasure from which I was not able to disentangle myself. I covered back up a long while later. I fell again asleep, but with a disturbed sleep. The following morning, when I went down from the berth, still dazed, benumbed, I noticed the stain of the semen of my nocturnal visitor, still wet, on the edge of the lower berth. I rapidly dressed and hurriedly changed compartment, and also coach.
I was literally thrown into confusion - with a sound catholic and traditionalist education, what shook me was the intense pleasure that accompanied that night adventure. I felt guilty having experienced that pleasure of a particular kind, moreover with a gender of me same.
Later, I forgot that incident, or to better say, I didn't think of it any more. I had a couple, no, three girls, but just with two I went as far as having intercourse complete. Agreeable. My guilty feelings very much attenuated, almost nonexistent. It is not that I was looking, at any cost, for sexual adventure; after all I liked girls very much, but mainly as friends. These, as I said, had been my only sexual adventures, until I was twenty-one, when that episode occurred. Possibly it is exactly that adventure of when I was fourteen that made me react in that way, I don't know. Because, in spite of the fact that I was drunk, with G* I enjoyed very much what I did, even the penetration, in spite of it being my first time - had been not at all painful, not even uncomfortable, quite the opposite... and that filled me with shame. Also what that railway man did to me that night on the train, at least I think he was one, had been very pleasurable, rather too enjoyable.
I was afraid to be gay. I didn't want to be gay. This was the core of my problem.
Q. And how did it happen that on the contrary you accepted being gay, when and thanks to whom?
A. It happened one year later, and always thanks to G*. As I told you, we remained good friends. After my "no" G*, who was then thirty-two, met a twenty-two year old model, a really beautiful boy, and fell in love with him. That boy, Philippe, foresaw the possibility of becoming famous thanks to G* and made him believe he returned his love. G* talked to me of him in enthusiastic and passionate terms.
You see, the fact that I didn't accept being gay, didn't prevent me from accepting that my good friend G* was. Therefore he freely opened up with me. I was happy for him, but instinctively I didn't like Philippe. And unhappily I was right. Their relationship lasted just one year, the time that G* needed to make him famous. When Philippe was a top model, just told G* that he was tired being with him, and left him, between today and tomorrow. But what was worse, being heavily ironical about the love that G* gave to him.
G* was destroyed. I tried to be near him, it gave me pain seeing him suffering so much, mainly because, receiving his trust, I could appreciate the beauty, intensity, deepness of his love for that boy. I tried to bolster his spirits, and I spent hours with him. But he seemed to sink more and more in a kind of gloomy despair.
Until one day, without a reason, without having fixed a date, I felt I absolutely had to see him. I called the magazine - but oddly, he hadn't shown up at his office. I called him - no answer. Usually, if he was not at home, he switched on the answering machine - it was switched off. This made me suspicious, alarmed me. I rushed to his house. I clung to the door bell. No answer.
Then I went upstairs and through the garret I reached the roof and from there I went down in his house's terrace - in fact he lived in the attic. I broke a window and entered. I called him, no answer. I found him in his drawing room. He was sitting, very still, on an armchair. I was afraid I came too late. I threw myself on him crying and calling him.
He answered: "Olivier, what did you come for?"
The relief seeing he was alive, after the terror at the thought he could have killed himself, made me understand in a flash how much G* was important to me. Or rather, made me understand I was in love with him!
I embraced him tightly, and murmured: "I thought you killed yourself..."
"In fact, it is what I'm going to do..." he said showing me a small vial of poison he had in his hand.
"Noooo!" I screamed trying to tear it away from his hand.
He tried to stop me, we fought, fell on the carpet. Then I, in despair, kissed him. I kissed and caressed him with fury, until he opened his lips and returned my kiss. I became at once aroused, I felt him becoming aroused. I undressed him in a frenzy - I wanted his love, I wanted him to take me again, I wanted to belong to him! I undressed and we started to make love with an incredible passion. I offered myself to him; he took me, and it was immensely more beautiful than the first time. When at last our ardour was placated, we lay down sweating, panting, still united. And, like on our first time, we glided into sleep. When I woke up, he was dressing.
"What are you doing?" I asked him.
"I'm dressing." he answered with a dark face.
"Why? I still need you..."
"No... we should not do it."
"Why not?" I asked him amazed, sitting up on the carpet and looking at him.
It was as if, comparing to the first time, the parts had absurdly reversed.
"You did it just to prevent me ending my life. But you are not gay. I still am in love with you, you opened again an old wound. I didn't ask for your pity... in this way you just postponed for a few minutes my death."
I looked around, alarmed, the poison vial. It was on the carpet. I rushed to seize it.
He bitterly smiled: "You can't prevent me forever, Olivier."
"No way, I can!"
"You cannot be always glued to me."
"No way, I can" I repeated stubbornly.
"But how?"
"G*, I love you. I didn't make love with you out of pity, but because I understood I am in love with you. And if I understood it earlier, you wouldn't have passed through Philippe's disappointment. But from now on you will have no more disappointments."
"You are telling me so, just to avoid my suicide."
"No! I'm saying so because I really understand it, that I am in love with you. And I like so much making love with you. I would never have done it just out of sympathy, believe me. I want to live with you, belong to you, I want make you happy and you to make me happy. Pull off those trousers, come on, come here. I really need to be making love with you again. I want to do it again, now!"
I pulled him down with me, and we again made love. This time with incredible sweetness, and calm. And this time G* wanted to be mine.
So that started a really beautiful and gentle relationship and less than one month later we decided we wanted to live together. I went to live at his place.
My job was proceeding better and better, I opened my second site moving the workshop and the show room there, and enlarging and transforming the old site into offices and into a school for models, with a small gym, a sauna and a solarium. Moreover I also started my line of sport clothing and underwear.
We were invited for an important fashion parade at Trinita dei Monti in Rome - it was the seal on my fame. G* left Vogue to dedicate himself exclusively to the publicity for my production. We went together. The parade was a great success. We were happy. When it was all over, I went back on the morning flight, as I had an important meeting in Paris. G* would reach me with the night flight, as he had to settle some contracts with the Italian TV.
But we never again saw each other - his flight left Rome on time but never reached Paris. His loss threw me in a deep crisis. I was planning to get rid of everything; I didn't want to do anything anymore. Didier, one of my earliest models, who now directed the school, stood by me, and gradually succeeded in pulling me out from my depression. As a reaction I plunged almost madly into my job. I was taking care of everything and everybody all had to pass through my hands. Some of my collaborators, resenting being deprived from their responsibilities, left me. But good Didier convinced the majority to tolerate me and to remain. In fact, little by little, I got back my balance, I calmed down.
For one whole year I didn't have sex any more - I didn't feel that need. But getting back some serenity, made my desire awaken again. Also because many of the boys auditioning at our place for possible selection to become models, for the parades or for the pictures for my lines, very often offered themselves to me. So, I started to take them to bed, one after the other.
Q. There are many gays in this category.
A. It is undoubtedly so, but it was not only for that - not only gay people offered themselves to me just with the hope to be selected. Being my model often meant becoming famous and earning a lot of money. Therefore, as the competition was tough, they used any means, also that one.
Q. Can you tell us what percentage?
A. About the eighty per cent, more or less. Of those, perhaps two thirds were gay, one third available for homosexual sex.
Q. Did you take all of them in your bed?
A. No, of course not. First of all the first selection was made by Didier so that just the more suitable for their physique and looks came to see me. In fact at times boys absolutely unfit, unsuited for that kind of job showed up. Then I did a second selection and sent back to Didier the good ones to start at the school. Very few succeeded. In fact they had to match a certain image of man that nowadays characterized my production, that's why the final choice was mine. Amongst those I chose, let's say I took to bed only those who offered themselves to me, and three out of four of those. Two things are essential - one is that I never offered the job to a boy only because I wanted to fuck him; the second is that I never asked a model to let me fuck him, he to offer himself to me. In other words, contrary to their expectations, the fact that I liked boys didn't have any weight at all on their getting the job.
Q. Anyway, you had many of them.
A. I can say so, even if I never counted them, but in twelve years... many, for sure.
Q. But they offered themselves to you... how?
A. Quite explicitly. Well, of course, each one according to his character and personality. I was amused, when I guessed they were trying to make me understand their availability, to see what system they would choose.
Q. For instance? I think that this makes our readers as curious as it makes me curious. What happens behind the scenes...
A. Do you want an example? Good. I normally asked them why they wanted to work with me, and usually at this point their offer came.
With speeches like: "Everybody would like to be a model for you... it is like a dream being part of that beautiful band of models that everybody admires. It means becoming famous. I am therefore aware there is much competition, and that you cannot hire everybody, but I want to become your model, and I'm ready to do anything, believe me. I will dedicate myself to the utmost to give you satisfaction, to be happy with me in all ways, for everything, for any desire you could have." and the way they utter these words and look at me, completed the message in an unmistakable way.
Or else: "I would like to work for you because I have a great admiration for your production, but also for you as a person, for your personality. You always fascinated me, from the first time I saw your picture, believe me. You are an exceptional man, and having the luck to be near you fascinated me even more than the job itself. I think that if you were a cook, I will come to ask you to be your dish-washer. I don't know what I would not do in order to be accepted by you. If just you told me 'I want so and so', I would be ready. Ready for anything." and also here the way they spoke was eloquent - that 'ready for anything' was mainly giving me his body.
Or even: "You see, I am somewhat embarrassed... If I tell you that I am up to the task, I could pass for a conceited person. But if I say I'm fearing not to be up to the task, I could pass for a person not certain of his skills... Therefore, I would like you to try me, to judge in person. I understand that you cannot, how they say, to buy something without seeing it first. If you want me to undress here in front of you... to show you what I can offer you if you hire me... I am ready... I would be happy to convince you that it would be worth to take me... If you want to discover my hidden talents and try them... May I undress?"
And more: "To be a model for you has always been my dream and would make me so happy. I would really be deeply grateful, and I would show you all my gratitude. I am a very pliant boy, I am sure I could please you, anything you could desire from me. Also besides the work, I mean, on a personal level. And I would also be discreet and reserved..."
But also much more explicitly: "Why I would like to be your model? Because I am gay and I know that many models are so. And I like sex. To tell the truth, I like it mainly with people older than me, with people like you, for instance..."
Or else: "Because I believe in myself. I know I am handsome, and likeable. And I know how to give much pleasure. Therefore I think I would be a good acquisition for you, and if you want, you can also check it at once, here or where do you like best... I can be really available, believe me."
Or lastly: "I think you like me, and I like you. So, besides working for you, I could also, if and when you desire it, come to bed with you." ...Is that enough?
Q. Incredible! All of them so cheekily?
A. Of course not, that was la crème de la crème. Others have a more subtle, elegant, indirect way. I'll give you one more example, from a few days ago. An eighteen year old boy, really handsome, who by the way, I hired, he is now attending my school, he will appear in future. Anyway I didn't take him to bed, I don't do that any more, of course, since I am with my Jean-Michel.
Well, the boy tells me: "I would like to become a real professional model. I think I have what it takes, but I could be wrong. Certainly you are the best judge. I would like to be led by hand in this difficult job. To follow your advice, your direction, your least desires about what I have to do to make you happy with me. I would entrust completely myself to you, soul... and body!"
Isn't that a poem? I hired him, not for that, but because besides his ideal body for my product image, he has another talent - a really remarkable expressiveness.
Q. You were saying that for twelve years you took many of the boys who offered themselves to you. Never anything serious?
A. No, never. At times it was just one encounter, at times instead it lasted even for one year. But always without sentimental involvement, also because if I became aware, and at times it happened, that a boy was having a crush on me, I at once ceased any physical contact with him. I didn't want to be bound any more...
Q. But on the contrary...
A. On the contrary... I was thirty-six years old. I got into the habit of passing, every evening, going back home, a bar near the mansion where I live, the "Petit Prince", the owner of which is a good friend. I had a drink, chatted with him, then I went back home. It was almost a ritual. One evening, while I'm going home, close to the bar I notice a boy leaning against a street lamp, with a big bag near him. I look at him - he is poorly dressed but he seems to me an uncommon beauty. He is the quintessence of all my best boys. I pass him, asking myself who could he be. I don't think any more about it. The following evening, I see him again - the same clothes, the same position, the same street lamp. He is beautiful! Also his languid pose attracts me. He doesn't look at me.
Q. Was he a hustler?
A. No, that place was not a cruising place. And he did nothing to try to hook me. Therefore he made me even more curious. On the third evening, I see him again, and I am thinking of talking to him, but I go back home. Then on the fourth evening, it is later than usual and the bar is near closing, I enter and I see the boy sitting at a table, and eating a sandwich with evident pleasure. Now that he is under a stronger light, he is even more beautiful. I go to the counter and, in a low voice, I ask the owner if he knows that boy.
Serge tells me he does: "He is a seventeen year old boy. He lost his job, he has no family. He came to Paris from the country; he is looking for a job, but without luck. He has no home, so he sleeps under the nearby bridge, in a cardboard shelter. He has no more money, so each morning when the bar opens, and each evening before to close, I offer him something to eat and drink. His name is Jean-Michel..."
Q. Your Jean-Michel, then?
A. Yes, in person. Serge continues: "He seems a good boy to me, I'm trying to help him as I can. If I just needed a waiter, I'll hire him willingly, but unhappily..."
So, I take my glass and say him: "I can possibly help him..."
"It would be great, Olivier..."
I go to the boy's table and ask him if I can sit with him. He looks at me somewhat amazed (all the other tables are free) but he nods yes with a light smile. I sit down.
"Your name is Jean-Michel, right?"
"Yes..." he answers with an interrogative tone.
"The barman, who is my friend, told me you are looking for a job."
"Right."
"Do you know who am I?"
"No... I'm sorry..."
I introduce myself and make him my proposal - to became my model: "you can earn good money, it is a good job..." I conclude.
He smiles: "You told me I will need to follow a course of several months..."
"Certainly."
"I can't pay for that course."
"It would be free of cost, anyway."
"But meanwhile I could not earn money and before getting my first pay months would elapse... I don't have any money, I don't have even a shelter..."
"I could provide for that. You can live at my home, eat with me. Clothing... well you understand it would be the lesser problem - you would just have to make your choice from my past productions. Free also, of course."
He looks at me. He has an open, frank, clear look. I assure you that I feel quivers of pleasure.
Calm, without embarrassment but also without aggressiveness, he asks: "Excuse me - the offer, it is really generous... What causes you to make it?"
"I noticed you these last days, and I like you, very much."
"What do you mean, sir, telling me you like me? What are you expecting in exchange from me?"
"I like you very much, as I told you, therefore two things pushed me to make you this proposal. The first is that I believe you can become a wonderful model, and very seldom am I wrong. The second is that I would like it if between us could begin a more personal rapport... I would like making love with you."
He doesn't change his expression but slightly smiles, looks at me with the same clear, calm glance and says: "I thank you very much, but I have to refuse your offer. I thank you very much because you offered me an interesting job and more than convenient conditions, but also because you said me clearly what you expect from me, without cheating on me. But I have to refuse as I never had sexual rapport with people of my same gender and I don't feel like having them. Forgive me."
I liked very much his answer.
I shook my head and smiled: "I probably didn't express myself clearly. I didn't mean that I offer you this job with the condition you come in bed with me. They are two different things, not related. If you want to accept only the first proposal, it is all right with me. And the fact I offered you hospitality in my home, does not have second meanings, you have my word of honor. My home is really big, you would have your personal room, your privacy and I would never ever put you in embarrassing situations, please believe me."
"Yes, I trust you. You have been honest with me from the start, therefore I believe you. Your proposal is too alluring to refuse it, at these conditions. If I didn't offend you, if you still want to help me..."
"Of course you didn't offend me. I like your frankness and your determination. So then, is that settled?" I ask him offering him my hand.
We shake hands smiling - I feel pleasure shudders just to that contact...
"Come, I live nearby..." I say standing up.
He takes his bag and follows me. At home, I show him his room, give him the linen for the night, show him the rest of the apartment. And tell him the good night.
"Don't you want me to tell you my story?" he asks somewhat surprised.
"We will have plenty of time over the next few days, if you like. Now take a good bath, and hit the bed. I think you need a good rest. Tomorrow morning wake up at seven thirty, breakfast then to the job. Good night."
"Good night, And thank you..."
I like him, I like him very much. Never mind! Next day I take him to meet Didier and after explaining him who the boy is, I ask Didier to make him a personal wardrobe choosing the clothes he likes from my past collections, and to send all to my home, then to start him in the course. I go to my job. We meet again for lunch - he changed his clothes, he now wears clothes of my line, Didier also took him to the barber changing his look. The boy is now, if possible, even more beautiful and desirable than before.
Our cohabitation starts. He is a delicious boy, intelligent, cheerful, lively, elegant, but also reserved, discreet, clean, tidy, respectful. He asked me permission to read my books - I told him to take from my library any book he desires to read, to listen to any CD or to look at any video he wants. He thanks me. He goes around, at home, always properly dressed and tidy. I saw him naked just once when I went to talk with Didier, and he was changing. He showed neither embarrassment nor exhibitionism, not even when he became aware I was looking at him. A perfect, sensual body that at once aroused my desire.
I was careful to never let him feel how much I desired him, but I think that with his sensitiveness he was aware. He was good company and I loved having him around at home. It was really pleasurable talking with him. He was attentive, available, sincere.
The fact of having him at home made some changes in my life - first of all I stop taking home, to my bed, the boys, so as not to embarrass him. It is not a heavy sacrifice. Then, I stop going to the bar in the evenings - I feel better at home with him. He too is rather a home-loving type. And last but not least, I feel more serene, motivated - I like having someone to take care of, and who in a way takes care of me.
Didier is simply enthusiastic about the boy - he tells me that he has a natural gift so that in just two months he will be ready for the first shots and for the first catwalk. Talented for both things, as only the best models are. So, Jean-Michel becomes part of my group of boys. With his good nature he at once bonds with them and becomes friends with all of them. And so he meets Herbert. He is one of my preferred models, a wonderful boy, twenty-two years old. Herbert has a crush on Jean-Michel. He starts to court him, he unsheathes all his charm, and he gradually succeeds in seducing him. Knowing that Jean-Michel is not gay, he carefully prepares his trap, he proceeds very slowly, it took him about four months but at last he succeeds in taking him to his bed. And Herbert, in bed, is more than skilled, I know that very well. So, the first experience for the boy is something unexpectedly wonderful, and Jean-Michel accepts it with real simplicity, without traumas, and soon accepts being the steady boyfriend of Herbert. Well, at least for that, I have to be grateful to Herbert.
Q. Did you know about all that?
A. No, I don't know anything about that, only later did I get to know. I just noticed that Jean-Michel is more luminous than ever. Didier, however, knew everything, but he, knowing I have a crush on the boy (with Didier I open up willingly) he thinks that I would feel bad knowing that Jean-Michel accepted Herbert's courtship and not mine. The relationship between them lasts exactly four months. It ends because Herbert makes a wrong move. He wants Jean-Michel to leave me and to go to live with him. The boy answers him that he cannot - he feels I need his company, and after all I did for him, he doesn't want to be ungrateful. Then Herbert starts to say bad things about me, to criticize me, to tell him nasty things about me, also lying. Jean-Michel takes my side. Herbert insists. The have a fight. A violent fight, where Herbert, losing his self- control, pulls off his mask and spits venom. So, Jean-Michel sees the real face of his boyfriend, and gets a huge disappointment. He decides he doesn't want to have anything more to do with Herbert.
For four or five days I notice that Jean-Michel is gloomy, silent, thoughtful. I ask him what happened. "Nothing" he answers. I understand he doesn't feel like telling me, so I don't insist. I have no right nosing in his private life. But then, one evening, he tells me he needs to talk with me. I notice he is again serene, his eyes luminous, and I'm happy for him.
With his usual clean, direct, frank style, he begins: "Olivier, you are still attracted to me, aren't you?"
"Well, yes... I hoped to be able to hide it from you... I don't want to put you in embarrass..."
"Yes, I know, and I appreciate that very much. And I want to apologize to you."
"Apologize? For what?"
"Are you in love with me?"
"I... I... well, yes, I am."
"So. I did not understand that earlier. Before... Olivier, do you want me as your boyfriend?"
I look at him astounded, unbelieving, happy, amazed, and these feeling overlap, follow each other, mix up and I am not even able to utter a word. I tremble. He looks straight into my eyes, I feel like if his smile enwraps me...
At last I manage to say: "But you are not gay... don't mix up gratitude with... it could not last."
"You are wrong. I really think I am gay." he says, and tells me everything about Herbert and him. And at last he tells me: "... and right while I was taking your side, I understood how important you are to me, how much I like you, I understood I am in love with you... and I want to be yours."
"You should think carefully about that." I say with hesitant but stirred voice.
"I did in these past days, because I have absolutely no intention of deceive you. You don't deserve it. No. You are an exceptional man, good hearted, gentle, honest... and handsome. I like you very much, I really do. All considered, thinking it back now, I was attracted to you from the first moment, even if then I thought it was just a plain liking, and presumed I was not gay. No, I am really in love with you, and would like being your boyfriend, if you still want me."
"If I want you? And how! Do you know that you are making of me the happiest man on the world?"
"I hope to be able to make you always feel so, Olivier... will you please take me to your room?"
So, we became lovers. I was really happy, enraptured. Also in bed we at once fit perfectly to each other, a full rapport on all levels - physical, emotional, intellectual. I decided to throw a great party in his honor. Friends, collaborators, all the people I wanted to communicate my great joy.
The mistake was to also invite Herbert. He at once contacted one of those scandalmonger magazines. They gave him one of those mini cameras hidden in his clothes. He shot pictures of our party. The title with the news appeared: "In great secret, the gay marriage of our most famous fashion designer with one of his models. All the details." We were hounded by the mass media. You know that I never release interviews; therefore I refused to undergo them. But with Jean-Michel we prepared a press-release to all the mass media. It said just this: "The news is incorrect, all the details are invented. We will report that magazine to the court for all the news is devoid of any truth." and it was signed by both our names. The media published our release. Anyway soon the sensation calmed down.
Q. And now you have been together for eleven years. A wonderful record!
A. No, the years are still few. I promise you I will give you a new interview when we celebrate our twenty fifth anniversary.
Q. Thank you, and a thousand wishes of happiness to both of you.
CONTINUES IN CHAPTER 4
In my home page I've put some more of my stories. If someone wants to read them, the URL is
http://andrejkoymasky.com
If you want to send me feed-back, or desire to help revising my Englis translations, so that I can put on-line more of my stories in English please e-mail at
andrej@andrejkoymasky.com